Laser Patterned Self-Aligned Electrodes for Dual-Shell Hemispherical Resonator Gyroscope

Our innovative approach is to modify the Dual-Shell micro-Hemispherical Resonator Gyroscope (DSG) design [1] by using the inner and outer shells for electrostatic driving and sensing (Fig 3). Fem-to second Laser Induced Chemical Etching (FLICE) [2] is used to directly define the capacitive gap inside the bulk of the Fused Quartz material. With the pro-posed process, there is no need to separately fabricate electrodes, nor assemble the vibratory element with electrodes. The mean capacitance was measured to be 0.127pF and the highest quality factor of a released sample was measured to be 1.23 million before met-allization. Electrostatic actuation and detection of a DSG is demonstrated using the electrodes defined by the proposed process.